Inveterate Lovers

Not a new idea for me, but speaking about community has been resurging in my life over the last few days. I had a couple friends talk to me about their struggles, and they all boiled down to their attempts and failures at doing life by themselves. There are inherent weaknesses in our being that are only enflamed when we face them alone, and it has been my privelege to play a part in leading these people out of the place of solitude, and into a place of togetherness (thank you Joel Mason).

We are inveterate lovers, created by Love (the noun) in order to be bearers of the image of Love, and to love each other (the verb). When we try to do this by ourselves it falls flat. Love must go out, which could explain why we exist in the first place.

I moved back to Toronto a few months back when God showed me an image in my imagination of a central intersection of this city, crowded with people wearing dark sunglasses and speaking into cell-phones. I immediately took this to mean that the people were not interacting, trying not to be seen by each other, and not talking to each other, choosing instead to talk to someone farther away.

Recently God brought this picture back to me, only this time the people took off their sunglasses, and put down their cell-phones. Suddenly I became aware of a deeper truth in this, that the people wore their sunglasses to sheild themselves from letting God's light in, and spoke into cell-phones to avoid letting God's Spirit speak to them. Obviously a bit more metaphorical than I had first believed.

But again, in this second picture, months later than the first, the people were removing their glasses and cell-phones. I believe that the city is ripe, and that the people of Toronto are about to come into contact with the Love of their lives en masse. I don't know how it's going to happen, but it will be like the signal to the phones, the thing that was distracting them, hiding them, will become weaker. No longer will the technology and communications, and media, and lies, and crap be able to hold us in a stupor. And the sun will rise again in this city, and instead of the typical reaction of putting on sunglasses and sheilding ourselves, the people will marvel at this sunrise, and long to see it for what it truly is, and will remove the blinders that have covered there eyes.

I'll let you know how this plays out over the next few months (heck, years. I don't know).

God, I am so thankful that you created us, that you love us. Thank you that I bear your image. I will carry that image out into my city.

Peace.